I pee a lot, because I drink a lot - of water. Besides being a healthy thing to do, oncologists strongly recommend that cancer patients on chemo or immunotherapy stay as hydrated as possible as this will help protect vital organs and tissues from some of the harmful affects of certain drugs. Keeping this medically sound recommendation firmly in mind, I would like to share my system for drinking, and peeing.
I have three 750ml water bottles that I fill each each night before going to bed. One goes upstairs with me and sits on the nightstand next to my bed, but gets refilled the next morning. The daily plan is to drink all three 750ml bottles before refilling them each night. In case you weren't keeping track, thats 4 times 750ml which equals 3000ml, or 3 liters, or .83 gallons, or 3.17 quarts, or 13.2 cups, or 6.34 pints, or you get the idea.
Let me put this another way - in 2013 the average American person drank only 7,242 ounces (or 58 gallons) of water annually - that's only 20 ounces or 2.5 cups daily. On the one year anniversary of my 1st infusion I'll have drank 1,095 liters of water, or 289 gallons, or 4,628 cups in one year. But according to the National Institute of Medicine and the Mayo Clinic, I'm actually getting what is considered to be the adequate intake (AI) of water each day - 3 liters for men (2.2 liters for women). I wonder if this means that I need to push things up to 4 liters a day?
Which brings us logically to the next phase - peeing. According to the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, adults typically produce about 1½ quarts (about 1.4 liters) of urine daily. However, this amount can range greatly, from just under a quart to half a gallon (800 milliliters to 2 liters) daily. I'm pretty sure I've got this and in spades because there's pretty much not a piece of acreage that I haven't peed on in my humble little town of Alameda, and in Oakland and Berkeley and of course in San Francisco.
My favorite place to pee, of course is at home, when I'm alone and guaranteed a quick access to the bowl. My next favorite place to pee is pretty much any where outside, with my backyard and the golf course tying for an easy second place. There's nothing finer than leaving your mark wherever you need to when you're drinking 3 liters of water everyday, and boy do I. After my outside pees, things get a little more complicated as I may be running errands or driving or not near one of my 1st or 2nd peeing choices, which of course is very uncomfortable sometimes. Not to worry - I've pretty much mapped out all of the appropriate public bowls that I might need on any given day.
And yes, after writing this down into my blog, I have to pee.... how about you?
